Since it comes as a Java Jar file, I decided to go ahead and buy the documentation for about $55 USD. The first thing I noticed was that the PDF file was for the 1.0.19 version and not the current 1.5 version. This was worrisome. However, David’s blog pointed out that the documentation also gave you a complete sample set of charts in a jar file, and instructions to run it.

Between the documentation and the sample set of 300 graphs, it was fairly easy to make quick progress. The documentation gave me enough clues to make a Java Servlet that created a PNG with a summary chart. There is a sample app that allows simple clicking through the 300 sample graphs and charts to allow selection of various features for chart type, legend manipulation, axes control, titles, subtitles, etc. Combining these two elements, I was able to pull together four graphs of three different chart types fairly quickly. My first chart follows.

Disadvantages of Graphs and Charts with JFreeChart

As previously mentioned JFreeChart is not totally free if you want the documentation and the sample charts. But to me, they are totally worth $55 USD. Also as mentioned, the documentation is not current for version 1.5 – but it was good enough in the sections I needed to help me create Java Servlets that produced a PNG image. The sample charts are well worth the money and helped me craft custom charts such as the bar chart below.

It would have been nicer if the documentation was up to date. It also would make me feel a bit better if there were updates post 2017 to this project by David. But it works great and is mostly free. David also has other newer SVG graphs, JS graphs and a whole new charting library. But this one worked well enough for marrspoints.com.

Conclusion of Graphs and Charts with JFreeChart

Hopefully this short article has helped you see that you can build some free Java based graphs and charts with JFreeChart.

I received this unit in December 2019 with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installed. The 3.28 version of Gnome running on the system did not support display “Fractional Scaling” – which made some applications much too small (or in 200% mode much too big) to read and use well. Some research showed that a newer version of Gnome would support Fractional Scaling with 125%, 150%, and 175% options available. The 20.04 LTS version Ubuntu includes Gnome 3.36 which does support Fractional Scaling.

Back ports of the Hades Canyon NUC

Right now Ubuntu 20.04 does not provide direct upgrades from the 18.04 LTS release until the 20.04.1 release arrives. I did download the ISO and ran it under virtualization and can see the Fractional Scaling option exists!

I will soon be moving my development environments over and moving from the Ubuntu Unity desktop to Gnome in this high-powered mini-PC with 64GB of RAM, a quad core i7 processor, and amazing video power.